THE war against poachers who are threatening elephants with extinction could be funded by ­Britain’s overseas development fund, a leading conservationist said last night.

Born Free chief executive Will Travers wants the Prime Minister to use small slice of the £8billion-plus foreign aid budget to help Africa save the creatures.

Mr Travers, whose father Bill and mother Virginia McKenna set up the Born Free Foundation after starring in the classic Sixties film of the same name, said: “Africa’s elephants are in crisis. Tens of thousands are being poached each year but they are not without hope. The African Elephant Action Plan is backed by every country that has wild African elephants but we need hard cash to make it a ­reality.”

He pointed out that terror groups, some linked to Al Qaeda, poach ivory to buy arms. The slaughter is fuelled by the rising price of elephant tusks, which are fetching up to £90,000 in the Far East.

China’s burgeoning middle classes see ivory as an investment, calling it “white gold”. Tragically, much of the ivory they buy is carved into elephant trinkets regarded as good-luck charms.

Elephant numbers have dropped from 1.3 millon to 400,000 in two decades and today many of Africa’s most reviled terror gangs, Al Shabaab, the Janjaweed, Boko Haram and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, are funding their brutality by poaching ivory.

The elephant’s plight, along with wiping out of rhinos for their horns, will be a key issue this week when 177 countries meet to discuss the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) this week. Statistics on the agenda are an appalling indictment of our exploitation of wildlife.

Richard Benyon meets the Kenyans fighting poaching/ IFAW

Africa’s elephants are in crisis. Tens of thousands are being poached each year but they are not without hope.

Born Free chief executive Will Travers

Besides the killing of elephants, the world has seen:

668 rhino of South Africa’s 20,000 rhino poached last year;

African lion numbers falling by 50 per cent to below 35,000 since 1980;

3,500 wild tigers clinging to ­survival;

At least 38 million sharks caught to make fin soup;

Thousands of manta rays caught for traditional Chinese medicine;

Approximately 600 polar bears killed each year.

Britain is playing a major part in the talks and last month Environment Minister Richard Benyon visited Kenya where wildlife rangers are locked in daily fire fights with poachers. The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency has a strong presence in the region, supporting law enforcement agencies.

Mr Benyon has been widely applauded by conservation organisations for his stance on many of the debates that will rage at the CITES conference in Bangkok. He is supporting greater protection for polar bears, sharks, manta rays and rhinos as well as the ­elephants whose plight he witnessed in Kenya recently.

Mr Benyon, a former soldier, said: “We recognise the trade in ivory and rhino horn is an international criminal activity which destabilises entire countries and is up there with arms trafficking .

“On my trip I met wardens from the Kenyan Wildlife Service many of whom live with the daily risk of engaging in a fire fight with poachers. I was also shown confiscated hauls of ivory and I went up to North Kenya and saw the work being done in the conservancies.

“This is not just a problem for the range states of Africa. We have a global responsibility to stamp this out. We are spending a fortune trying to get stability in these countries like the Sudan and we know organisations like Al Shabaab are behind some of the poaching.”

Mr Benyon visited Kenya with Robbie Marsland, UK Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, who added:

“Our supporters in the UK and elsewhere leave us in no doubt that they want to see our planet’s wildlife protected at the highest level possible. One of the issues that concerns them, and us, the most is the horrific slaughter of thousands of elephants every year.

“These incredibly social and intelligent creatures are being systematically butchered by poachers simply so that their ivory tusks can be illegally sold and carved into trinkets which nobody needs.

"The killing is on such a scale that some populations are threatened with local extinction, while on the marketplace, many consumers simply don’t stop to think that every piece of ivory, in reality, represents a dead elephant.

“IFAW works with politicians and other decision-makers to lobby for Government action to protect elephants. I was delighted that the UK Minister Richard Benyon was keen to visit Kenya’s Amboseli National Park with me recently, to see for himself our work with the Kenya Wildlife Service to protect the park’s elephant population.

"Threats to elephants in Amboseli include human encroachment on their habitat due to the growth in local agriculture and tourism, as well as poaching.

“In many parts of Africa, illegal poaching is not carried out by local people, nor is it on a small scale, but increasingly it is planned mass killing by highly organised criminal gangs who use ivory as a currency for other illegal trade, such as drugs and arms.

“This is why we need concerted action now to fight the global ivory war and ensure that the iconic elephant is safeguarded for future generations.

"IFAW is working on the ground in Africa and Asia to provide anti-poaching patrols, to train authorities on better enforcement of anti-poaching legislation, to protect critical elephant habitat and to educate the public about the importance of avoiding buying ivory and other wildlife souvenirs.

“As governments from around the world converge in Bangkok this week to discuss the status and future of our planet’s wildlife, including elephants, polar bears, sharks and other species, we encourage the UK Government to maintain its strong stance on conservation and encourage other governments to do the same.”

Meanwhile in Britain, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is launching the “If They’re Gone...” campaign with key wildlife organisations to raise awareness of the plight of wild rhinos, tigers, ­elephants and orang-utans and provide the public with ways to support the conservation effort.